


There's Something About The Woods

by PresAlex



Category: Original Work
Genre: Dogs, Horror, If you wake up in an allegory never walk downhill ;), Introspection, POV Second Person, Psychological Horror, Shift In Tone, Symbolism
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-10-20
Updated: 2017-10-20
Packaged: 2019-01-20 09:55:05
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,032
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12430338
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/PresAlex/pseuds/PresAlex
Summary: There’s something about the woods near your house that calms you.It’s been years since you moved out of your parent’s place. You’ve been going through roommates like mad; as if the declining rent and prime location are scaring people off instead of drawing them in. At the moment, You’re in between roommates, but when are you not.





	There's Something About The Woods

There’s something about the woods near your house that calms you.

It’s been years since you moved out of your parent’s place. You’ve been going through roommates like mad; as if the declining rent and prime location are scaring people off instead of drawing them in. At the moment, You’re in between roommates, but when are you not.

The house is small, but not so much so that it feels crowded. There’s more than enough room for two people and even a pet if you wanted. Your parents were worried when you moved away, especially when you chose to buy this house. It’s within the city limits. It’s just close enough to the city to be a ten-minute drive from the closest large shopping centre, you don’t have to bother with neighbours since your closest neighbour is a couple miles away, plus the view is wonderful.

To the back and sides of your house are the beginnings of a dense forest. You’ve always loved seeing the wildlife. It’s become a hobby of yours to snap photos of the foxes, deer, and rabbits that come up to your house. It feels safe. Through your front window, you can see the sunset reflected on the highway, cars turn their headlights on around dusk. The distant lights of the city are just far enough away that the stars stand out brighter against the inky sky than they used to when you were a kid. Some nights you’ll sit out on your porch, tea in hand, blanket wrapped around your shoulders and listen. You don’t understand how anyone could dislike this place.

The night air tastes like evergreen and smoke from your distant neighbour's campfire–You were invited but didn’t have the energy tonight. The sound of the forest is somehow both incredibly soft and far too loud. It sets up a comfortable white noise that your thoughts can slip over easily. If you listen too much, however, the crickets, the wind, the hurried rustling of animals in bushes all become almost deafening. It isn’t unpleasant by any means. It’s easy to fall into silence letting the forest wash over you. It’s not a strange occurrence for you to accidentally fall asleep on your porch and you’re glad you haven’t seen a bear since you moved in because of this.

Of course, you aren’t stupid enough to go into those woods at night no matter how comforting you find them. There’s something oppressive about the looming nature of the cedar pines; the knowledge that anything could be out there. There’s a sort of barrier around your house that makes you feel safe and you figure it would be best to respect it.

One of your roommates brought a cat with them when they moved in. You didn’t mind but the cat sure seemed to. That was the reason they had moved out as far as you knew. Family troubles and the fact that their cat kept you both awake at night scratching at the walls and screeching. You didn’t hear much from them after that besides learning that their cat was fine now. They didn’t know why she had done that; she had never done that before, they said. The scratches are still etched into the wallpaper in your tv room. You didn’t feel it was necessary to redo the whole room so you just moved the couch in front of it.

The only other time a roommate brought a pet along was especially memorable for you. He was a friendly golden retriever. You had met up with her and her dog at a local park to interview her and see if you would be compatible living together. The dog had slept through the majority of the meet-up, but, as you were nearing the end, he sauntered over lazily and rested his head on your lap. She said he was old and didn’t do much besides sleep and eat so he wouldn’t be too much trouble to live with. You wouldn’t mind if he was a hassle as long as you didn’t have to pay full rent again.

Two months after she had settled in, her dog started acting strangely. He didn’t scratch the walls at the back of the house like the cat had, but would spend most of his nights alternating between growling at the side windows in the kitchen, and the back door of the house. Unfortunately, one night your then-roommate had let him out the front door to do his business before she went to bed and she never saw him again. Through her tears, she told you that she didn’t even see where he went. It’s so dark out here, she said, I saw him step off the porch and then he was gone. You were back to roommate hunting little over a week later.

You still occasionally think about that dog,– whether he’s still alive, what happened to him– you even went out one afternoon into the woods to see if you could spot him. All you found, however, was his collar which had gotten caught somehow on the antlers of a deer. You left the collar with the deer and went back to your house. That night it was humid. You found yourself sitting on your porch step, leaning against the banister and thinking.

It was a night just like that one that you were experiencing at the moment. You’d stripped to a sleeveless top and boxer shorts in some attempt at cooling off even though it was veritably useless. The humidity in the air was thick enough to choke the life from you. Your mind had wandered far enough that you’d lost it, the silence in your head easily replaced by the roaring hush of your surroundings. Your eyes are trained on the expanse of land in front of you. The area on your right and left was crowded with darkness, impenetrable by light (You would know. You’ve tried). In front of you is your large front lawn. You figure you could have done something to make it look more appealing but you like it just the way it is. There’s a driveway on the right side of your house on which your battered, second-hand car sits.

Vehicles whiz past your house on the highway, headlights hardly touching the darkness shrouded around you. The trees try to blot out the moon but only succeed in casting strange pointed shadows across the dead grass in front of you. You see a light flicker out somewhere closer to civilization as if trying to mimic your current situation. Fireflies blink every once in a while. You allow your eyes to follow their soft glows.

The cup of water clutched in your hands isn’t cold anymore. The condensation on the outside of the glass mingles with the sweat on your palms. You don’t know why you bothered. Not even a fan could cool you down on a night like this. You figure you won’t be getting much sleep. In one quick motion, you tilt the glass and down the contents, not minding the slightly warm water that ends up splashed on your shirt instead of in your mouth. If you aren’t going to sleep tonight you may as well do something to keep yourself occupied.

The screen door squeaks shut behind you as you re-enter your house. The cup is still on your porch but no one’s around to steal it so why bother picking it up. It takes you two boring hours to decide how you actually want to spend your night. Maybe you had decided long before then, but the underlying discomfort you felt at the idea forced you to try to forget it. You drag yourself off the couch to grab some shorts.

There’s something about the woods near your house that frightens you.

You own a couple flashlights, but only one has batteries– It’s an LED one as well which is a plus. On your way out the door, you slip your camera around your neck. It’s three in the morning by the time you gather the courage to exit back onto your porch. The cup is gone.

Your eyes move from where the glass used to be over to the tree line as if your eyeballs were suspended in molasses. You almost go back into your house and leave this for another night, but you’ve already come so far. Nothing has ever happened to you here; it’s always felt safe. You don’t know why that has to change now. Trepidation runs icily through your veins. As you lower yourself down onto the front step, your hand brushes against something cold. The cup from before is on the grass beside the step. You roll your eyes at yourself for being so skittish and try to relax.

It takes a shorter amount of time than you had assumed it would to be able to calm down. There’s just something about the trees that surround you that feels smothering in the most comfortable way. As if when you were outside in this darkness, you were constantly covered with a weighted blanket. The heat makes you drowsy, but the tingling quality of the air keeps your eyes open. Using your flashlight, you scan the forest surrounding you.

A fox jumps at the sudden brightness and scurries away from what it had found at the edge of your lawn. The light of the flashlight drags upwards, catching the startled glint of an owl’s eyes. Keeping your mind blank and your eyes closed, you let the sounds invade you again. There’s rustling amongst the bushes, the muted flutter of feathered wings, something hitting a tree, crickets, cars on the highway, the jingle of a collar.

Your eyes spring open. That’s new. You figured the deer from all those months ago had lost that dog’s collar a while ago. Shrugging, you drink the last of the water in the glass and set it closer to the door. Your flashlight is sitting beside your camera, both turned off. When you try the flashlight it seems the batteries have died. Before heading out into the forest, another pair of batteries will be needed.

The batteries are kept in a drawer in the kitchen. The kitchen light is the only light on in the house making it easy to find the batteries. Sounds from outside drift in through the open window above the sink, continuing to block out your thoughts as they appear. There is an entire pack of batteries still in your drawer that you don’t remember purchasing. Leaning against the table, you pluck the box from the drawer and stare absent-mindedly out the window. The window above the sink shows a lovely view of the forest and wild animals during the day. Without the light from the back porch on, however, the window looks like an empty hole in the wall of your kitchen.

The light catches on the glass of water in your hands, shining against the window. You jump. You don’t remember pouring yourself another glass of water. Confused, you leave the window. Two batteries in one hand and cup in the other, you head back to the front door. Or you thought you did.

The jingling of a collar jolts you from your apparent reverie. Instead of being at the front door as you thought you were, you find yourself staring at your hand on the knob of the back door which leads directly into the woods. The light in the front foyer behind you flickers slightly. You wrench your hand off the door as if it scalded you. There is a cup of water on the ground beside the back door, condensation pooling onto your hardwood. The batteries are still in your hand as you rush back to the front of the house. Your heart is racing but you don’t know why. You’ve never been afraid of living out here before. Then again you’d also never planned to go into the woods at night.

The camera and flashlight are both where you left them and the glass of water is still beside the door. The water dripping onto your porch seems all too much like the glass at your back door. When you peek inside at the other glass, it isn’t there. The back porch light shines softly through the window on the door, splashing warm pools of light across the floor where the glass used to be. You shake yourself physically and close your screen door. The flashlight batteries are easy to replace. The old ones quickly find a home in your pocket. The chill of the flashlight in your hand and the camera resting against your chest ground you.

You don’t know what you’re looking for or even why you want to do this. You try not to let your mind wander this time as you take your first few steps off of your porch.

You quickly drink the freezing water from the cup in your hand and place it on the banister.

Before entering the forest you look back at your house. Light shines softly from the back rooms of your house. The light at the front of your house turns off. A shiver rips through you. You turn around. The jingling you heard earlier greets your ears again. It’s a refreshing difference to the suddenly suffocating normal noise of the forest. You take your camera from your pocket and turn it on. You don’t even know why you brought the camera along with you since it’s so dark. You take a couple shots of nothing with the flash just to see if taking pictures is even worth it. Standing amongst the trees, you open your gallery to see the photos.

The distant sound of dog tags jingling drifts over from somewhere far to your right. Something soft touches your calf but its too dark to see what it is. You take your camera out of your pocket to see if you can catch a photo of what it was. You didn’t realize you were walking until you step on something soft. The camera you thought was in your hands is back around your neck. The flashlight is switched on but still in your front pocket alongside the old batteries. You take it out but refuse to look at the ground. You don’t want to know what that was, but you hope it doesn’t wake up. Each time your foot is placed down you suddenly find yourself praying you go unnoticed. You don’t even know what ‘it’ is. You pray you don’t find out.

Something soft brushes your leg. This should make you afraid given the circumstances, but it only reminds you of how tired you are. It must be close to four AM by now. It doesn't even cross your mind to turn the flashlight on the soft creature that is apparently beside you. There is a small clearing up ahead that you can see through the trees. The moonlight reaches the clearing, cold light filtered by the heat and the tops of the trees. A small animal hears you coming. You can see its tail flick through the trees as it scurries away. This seems to be the lightest part of the forest, yet as you near the edge of the clearing, you suddenly feel more afraid than you have all night. You swear you can feel something watching you. The silence roars in your ears, threatening to take over your thoughts again. The deafening quiet is shut out by the frantic jingling of dog tags. Immediately, you snap to. Your flashlight is on the ground, four batteries sit heavily in your clammy palm. You quickly snap a photo of the clearing before scooping up your flashlight and heading to the right, where the jingling came from.

Something cracks behind you, and the only thing keeping you from whipping around to check if something is behind you is the now constant brushing of fur on your legs– the creature has placed itself between you and the clearing. You try to shine your flashlight down to see what it is but you find that you don’t have your flashlight on you. You take a picture instead hoping to look back at it later to see what you got. You nearly trip over something, which turns out to be your flashlight. You seem to have misplaced its batteries, though.

Pausing for a moment to pat your pockets for the batteries, you are suddenly overcome by the feeling of something coming up behind you. It doesn't feel like the soft creature but rather taller, darker, reminiscent of the cedar pines themselves but lacking the usual calmness of them. The soft creature nudges the back of your legs, pushing you forward.

The next step you take leads you to the back door of your house. It felt like hours that you’d been in those woods; It felt like you’d been walking for miles. From your position, you can see the flood of light coming from your front porch and foyer. Almost against your will, you begin to turn your body back to where you came from, but a persistent jingling from the lighter part of your house steals your attention. You sneak a couple more photos on your camera and meander towards the front of your house. The sky is ever so slightly beginning to lighten, painting it a dull grey instead of speckled black. The moon still shines above casting sharp shadows across the lawn. No cars are on the highway at this time of the morning. A light flickers on somewhere in the city.

The fireflies lazily drift about around you. Sharp wood from the corner of the step you’re sitting on jabs into the back of your thigh. The golden retriever beside you rests its head tiredly on your leg, you absentmindedly pet it. You take a drink from your lukewarm glass of water, the still night air pressing down on you. The photos on your camera remain unviewed as it sits forgotten on the porch.

There’s something about the woods near your house that watches you.

**Author's Note:**

> Posted this here at Ogden's request ;^3c (@trans-sister-radi0 on tumblr)
> 
> I'm very proud of this ! :) it was very fun to write. I've never written horror before!
> 
> Yes all the 'errors' in tense and continuity are on purpose. At the beginning of the story there's a missing dog, an empty house (the only light being on the kitchen), an empty glass of once-warm water sitting on the porch, two flashlights with two batteries among them, and a camera. It was fun to play with that and see how much of that I could change around to make it seem Just Unreal Enough To Be Unnerving.
> 
> Like always, my blog is @crykea if you want to talk!!


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